


Interlude: Day In, Day Out

by missmollyetc



Series: Cardverse [5]
Category: Numb3rs
Genre: Multi, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-13
Updated: 2010-02-13
Packaged: 2017-10-07 05:28:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/61867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missmollyetc/pseuds/missmollyetc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charlie's been thinking, and something just doesn't add up.  A companion piece to <a href="http://www.livejournal.com/community/numb3rs_slash/12175.html">"Interlude: The Daily Grind,"</a> which takes place between parts <a href="http://www.livejournal.com/community/numb3rs_slash/6823.html">Two</a> and <a href="http://www.livejournal.com/community/numb3rs_slash/6975.html">Three</a> of "The Business Card."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Interlude: Day In, Day Out

The 'why' was irrelevant now. Defining the 'why' would detract from the primary concern. What Charlie needed to figure out was the 'how.' Once the 'how' was established, then the 'why' could be determined based on the uncovered data.

The hallways were empty; classes hadn't started yet, and so the lights were on half power. Charlie's sneakers squeaked rapidly down the corridor. Amita wouldn't arrive until far later. No one ever came in this early except for him, and he'd trained the students to leave him alone if the door was closed. Charlie unlocked the math lab, shut the door behind him, and turned on the overhead fluorescents.

He paused, his back against the door. His clothes felt strange on his body, loose, but heavy. A knot formed in the pit of his stomach.

He'd had sex with his brother.

He'd touched--_Don'd_ touched…there should have been some form of outside evidence. Something he couldn't erase by showering.

He rubbed his knuckles with his opposite thumb, turning his hand over and staring into his palm. He'd looked…searched the places he remembered Don biting, where the texture of his skin seemed different, but there wasn't a mark on him.

But, it had _felt_…he had felt marked.

He dumped his pack on the counter, and fumbled for a dry erase pen. The big whiteboard on the far side of the room--the one nobody liked because it squeaked, but kept because it was frigging huge--was free. Crenshaw must've finished futzing with the bicuspid curve again.

Charlie could still feel Don against his body, pressing him into the wall. He swallowed. They hadn't talked, but events seemed to have progressed exponentially anyway.

There had to be an explanation for the situation at hand. Something Charlie wasn't seeing, or wasn't letting himself see--which was preposterous. He was a _mathematician_, he couldn't afford not to identify all the variables in a given problem. Covering the bases wasn't simply a baseball reference.

He tossed the red pen cap over his shoulder and defined an empty set at the top left of the whiteboard, giving himself plenty of room. First of all, he had to isolate the principles involved. There was Don, and there was Charlie. Say…A and B, to be classical--a binomial expression. He wrote the letters in capitals inside brackets.

Now A and B acted upon each other--no, it was better to say that B acted on A--wait. Charlie frowned. If he was going to be forced, due to lack of physical evidence, to rely on purely internal memory functions than he had to be very careful _which_ factors he admitted into the equation. This wasn't a classical problem. He erased the letters with the edge of his fist. This was a modern equation, something a little less than rational.

So, he and Don were C and D. He put a swirl on C's tail, and scrawled D on the board, then stopped. In this problem, C was the instigating factor. C plus D equals E went up. Charlie paused, digging the pen tip into the board. But how should he quantify E? Was E the…the sex? Was E--all right, he had to get his mind in gear. E was the _outcome_ which _included_ the sex, but was not exclusive to it.

Don had left. He hadn't said anything. He'd _left_. Charlie had gotten out of the car, turned around, and watched Don peel out of the driveway, and down the road.

Charlie scrubbed E from the board, then the rest of the equation as well. Ink stained his skin.

In an binomial expression, the terms were joined by a plus or a minus. His first proposal was that they were joined by a plus, but was this correct?

Yes. He was quantifying the data to define a solution that came from D and C together, not apart. Right, that made sense. An equation that didn't equal D leaving because of something C did.

Charlie wrote D on the whiteboard again, in thick red ink.

 

***

 

"You know, you wouldn't think it would _kill_ your brother to pick up a phone once in awhile," Dad said.

"Uh huh."

Charlie traced a three-dimensional square on the varnished wood of the dinner table with his index finger. His pen moved across the pad in front of him. He caught it just before it rolled off the edge of the table, and set the nib to the page.

"Which is why I'm so glad I live with the _talkative_ son."

If D and C were mutually exclusive factors, then the equation didn't work. Because he was dealing with variables in nature, that meant that outside stimulus came into play in the two instances where D and C acted upon each other: the dinner table, and the stairwell. The first episode occurred _in_ the house…

"Did something happen, Charlie?" Dad asked. "Something you'd like to talk about? I don't like being out of the loop on these kinds of things."

…and the second event took place at work. The first while alone, and the last had involved interaction with others. But _had_ the prior interaction in the workplace spurred the secondary occurrence? D acting on C in response to D's previous interactions with other variables was a possible explanation for the rate of agitation, but the quality of…wait. It could be said that f--the workplace variable--was merely an element of the DC intersection, which would lead to the idea that the first event was a linear precursor to the last incident, and thus _could_ be counted as merely the same situation, yet an octave higher as on a freely vibrating open string. The chain of events could be considered as being in _harmony_ with each other, and thus, merely part of the original ground note.

"That doctor woman wants to speak with you too, you know. Maybe _she_ could get you to talk. I've often thought about sending you to therapy."

However, following that train of thought…what about the variables _prior_ to the introduction of C? The ground note theory was fine in and of itself, yet it failed to take into account that the first event had been precipitated by factors _outside_ of C's involvement, and directly in D's purview.

D and C weren't enough. The problem was more complex than that, an incredible array of external factors acted on all the variables involved both _before_ the first event, and then immediately following--even _continuing_ as the sequence lengthened. Chaos. It really was a fascinating subject.

"Sometimes I think of moving to Boca, and getting a condo. I'm reasonably sure I'd get a postcard, now and then."

Charlie glanced up, and shook his head. He shoveled a forkful of green beans into his mouth with his free hand. He chewed, pointing at his jaw. Dad sighed, raised an eyebrow, and went back to his food.

Charlie swallowed the vegetables, and licked butter from his lips. He wrote another string of numbers on the pad, scratched them out, and began again. O, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89... He set his pen down with a snap. He was calculating the Fibonacci sequence. Why did people constantly barge into his thought processes?

And Don hadn't called. Don hadn't come over. Don _hated_ him. Charlie'd done it again. He hadn't _meant_ to leave Mom--he'd just--he'd just--he'd had to find the _solution_. And Don got him back by leaving. If not in body, but then…he'd stopped listening. And _just_ when Charlie had thought Don was paying attention again, Charlie had gone and screwed it up.

He set down his fork, and pushed his plate away. The trigger was _there_. He felt like if he just reached his hand out fast enough, he could snatch the answers from the air in front of him, but all he could see was Dad, eating dinner.

That was it. He had to divorce himself from the equation, look at all the variables as the numeric data they were. The instigating factor had to be isolated.

"I have to get to work," he said.

He grabbed his coat and pack on his way through the living room. He heard Dad's footsteps behind him and rushed through the door.

 

***

 

The math lab had too many people. If Crenshaw peeked over Charlie's shoulder _one_ more time, there would be blood shed. Charlie banged his office door closed, and tossed his pack in the corner. There was a post it note on his desk, in the department secretary's handwriting. He unstuck it from that brownnosing Spellman's latest paper, and read:

_Your father called. He wants to know if he should send your clothes to the school, since you've decided to live here. Also, he's got a pamphlet for Boca, and he's not afraid to use it. A Dr. Weber's office wants to know if you're free for an interview this afternoon. Is your whole family insane?_

Charlie let the post it flutter to the linoleum, and cracked open a fresh box of dry erase pens. The whiteboard behind his desk was open, and the numbers were calling. Now, the reason C had become an internal factor was _because_ D instigated an event--a meeting. D instigated an event because Ethan's daughter had been kidnapped, so that meant he was continuing along the same line he'd been pursuing for _days_…yet something in the loop refused to let him go. In that loop, that stretch of sequence, there lurked E, his outcome.

But to understand E, D had to be quantified, and D's participation continued to elude definition, both as a response and an instigation to C's involvement. C was a response to D, always had been. And there was _information_ to be had from D, but until the rest of the variables had been nailed down, then D would have to remain an unknown variable, which meant that the DC intersection lacked…

 

***

 

He let Amita drag him from his office only because she'd threatened to set fire to his files. He'd seen what happened to underclassmen who annoyed Amita in tutoring sessions. She'd do it.

"You know I don't mind taking your classes when you're working on a problem, but this one? Uh uh." She shook her head, waving to Li's gaping biology students as they passed.

He tuned her out, and continued along the path he'd created. He was _this_ close to the trigger. Now, if it _had_ been Emily's kidnapping--call it B, then D and C were accidental factors involved, since it was D that acted upon C to involve him in the case, and both D and C were drawn in through their own areas of expertise.

"I have homework to do," she continued. "Homework I had to assign _myself_ because my _advisor_ has gone over to the dark side."

Amita was talking to him about something. Homework? He didn't _have_ homework, he gave it.

"Come back to us, Charlie, okay? Larry's started coming to me for advice. It's creepy. I don't want to get used to it."

_If_ Atwood hadn't heard from Ethan--call that A--then he wouldn't have contacted Ballard and Kirkpatrick, who wouldn't have kidnapped Emily, whose parents wouldn't have contacted the authorities. _They_ wouldn't have found Ballard's hideout, and D wouldn't have had to kill Kirkpatrick.

But, outside stimulus (even on such a pared down thread as the one he'd just proposed) could not account for internal factors. A plus B did not necessarily equal D, since D had little control over what cases passed his desk. However, D's known relationship with C could possibly make a difference in the assignment of certain cases. That created another outside factor stemming from internal stimulus, and yet he was always coming back to himse--coming back to _C_. And, if A was the kidnapping, B Atwood's greed, and D the hero, than C…

Amita pushed him across a threshold, and shut the metal door behind him. The lecture room was full of freshmen--the bane of all right thinking people--and Charlie nearly backed out of the door. He would have made it too, if that brownnosing Spellman hadn't seen him trying to disappear through the closed door.

"Professor Eppes!" she said, and the whole class turned to look. "I thought you were at a conference?"

Charlie shrugged, glared through the glass partition behind him at Amita's smirk, and made his way to the front of the classroom. The freshmen settled into their chairs. He picked up a piece of chalk and began to write. Behind him the cacophony of notebooks rustling, backpacks zipping shut, and those weird, flippy arm of the chair desks being shoved into place increased dramatically before dying down.

He inched his way across the board, shaping the equation. "Prove that in the equality N equals N half plus N fourth plus N eighth plus etc. plus N half to the second plus etc…" he finished writing the ellipse and began to write the caveat. "Where, of course, N is an arbitrary natural number, every fraction may be replaced by the nearest whole number."

He glanced behind him, shrugged at the blank faces and went back to writing. "Now, here's the first solution. It is readily seen that A equals the set of A plus one half. So we can put the equation we want to derive into…the following form…"

He wrote faster, the scribbling of pens behind egging him on to quicken his pace. Every second he wasted with them, was taking away from his real problem. Charlie ran out of room on the right and walked back to the left side of the board, taking the time to switch chalk pieces. Damn things always broke, and then the debris got all over his clothes. He sneezed, and some ass in the back of the room laughed.

"Now," Charlie said, "we're letting N equal An multiplied by twon plus An-1 multiplied by twon-1…plus An-1 times two plus A0--where An, An-1, A1, and A0 are either zero or one--be the expansion of N in powers of two,"--he glanced behind him--"as in the binary number system. Which means that the set of N half plus one half equals the set of An multiplied by twon-1 plus An-1 times twon-2 to plus…plus A1 plus the equation A0 plus one _divided_ by two equals…"

In the reflection of the framed Pascal's Triangle on the wall above him, he saw some heads nod, but most of the freshman were bent over their papers, writing as fast as Charlie could speak. He turned back to the board, and continued.

This was fairly simple, but the time it took was more important. The solutions covered more than a page, and, of course, the entire equation depended on the student having a full grasp of the facts involved. Which meant that after he gave them the first solution, then the real fun of divining the second answer could be--the second solution. More specifically, a second point of attack.

Charlie stopped writing. He let the chalk fall onto the ledge, and stepped away from the board.

He'd been sequencing Fibonacci at the dinner table last…he'd been at dinner…some time ago. Fibonacci occurred throughout nature and art, in a sequence where each number was calculated from the sum of the previous two. Zero, one, one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen, twenty-one, thirty-four, fifty-five, eighty-nine, one hundred and forty-four, two hundred and thirty-three, three hundred and seventy-seven, six hundred and ten, nine hundred and eighty-seven, one thousand five hundred and ninety-seven, two thousand five hundred and eighty-four, four thousand one hundred and eighty-one, six thousand seven hundred and sixty-five…F[n] equaled F[n minus one] plus F[n minus two] with ratios found by F[n] divided by F[n minus one].

A sequence of events built on the sums of the last equations, with secondary solutions found to contain identifiable patterns of their own. Patterns that could then be quantified, and which led back to the original answer.

"Finish this," he said. "Find the second solution by Tuesday."

The door banged shut behind him.

 

***

 

Charlie frowned at his whiteboard, and tossed the empty pen to the trash. He picked up the next marker, and pulled off the cap. He blinked a few times, trying to stop the figures from swaying on the board.

D stood for Don. E, for the outcome. And C…he was always coming back to C. Which didn't make sense because the object wasn't to quantify C. _C_ was a known variable--there was no need to understand how C became involved. The entire point of the expression was E and D, but if E was dependant on C, and D remained _independent_ than the…that meant that…

"I thought I'd find you here," someone said behind him. "Not that you've been anywhere else, but I thought I'd put my faith in the laws of probability one more time. Mind if I take a seat?"

C was an internal factor, which meant that A and B were the outside stimulus that set D on his path. A naturally followed B, and since D was involved C was an inevitable component, but that meant that C was also an outside stimulus acted upon by D, and thus _becoming_ an internal factor. So the integral _internal_ factor was D, the zero point.

"Did you know Amita _actually_ came to me, and asked if there was mathematical methadone?"

But A occurred before the integral factor had come into play which meant Don wasn't _integral_, but merely internal, so C _wasn't_ an inevitable component of the equation. Or, perhaps, D was merely the integral factor for a specific variable that then changed the equation, and could therefore be interfered with by said specific variable, and so he came back to C again.

C was…C was…Charlie very carefully set his pen down on the whiteboard ledge. C was the interfering factor that changed the equation. C wasn't C at all. He was X, the unknown variable.

He sat down on his desk. X by its very nature allowed for multiple hidden variables to screw with the theretofore mostly linear chain of events. So X, in a sense, was a destructive force, wreaking havoc on all the lesser algorithms.

Somebody should have posted warning signs around him. Yes--no. No. He'd made a mistake. He should go over his results again, find the flaw.

"I wondered if you'd reach a stopping place."

Charlie turned, and blinked. Larry was sitting in the chair opposite his desk.

"I haven't?" Charlie asked.

Larry fixed his eyes on the whiteboard, and pursed his lips. "Are you certain?"

He almost nodded. He couldn't be X, because he was C, and yet he _was_ X, and thus out of place in the equation. A horrible, disastrous mistake, and the equation wasn't coming out the way he needed if he was going to figure out _how_ he--how _C_\--X--he needed more information. He needed to find out where he'd slipped up.

Charlie turned to board, and reached for the pen. He blinked slowly, shuddering in the sudden chill. It had gotten late, when had that happened?

"I understand that math is not my…area, _per se_, but I feel reasonably confident in the subject given its application in my own field. May I ask what you've been computing?"

Charlie turned back around, stepping in front of the board. "No."

Larry blinked. Charlie crossed his arms over his chest, and stuck his chin out.

"That's…refreshingly private," Larry said, "considering the usually open field of math department relations. You're not pulling a Wiles', are you? You won't be…"--his hands rose, the fingers spasming outward--"springing the solution to P. vs. NP on us at a Newton Institute seminar?"

A chuckle escaped his mouth before Charlie realized what it was. His head drew back slightly. Well. He hadn't done that in a while.

Larry cocked his head. His hands, still in the air, aligned horizontally, and began to revolve around each other.

"Wiles' first proof of Fermat's Last Theorem was flawed, Larry," Charlie said, and coughed.

His throat felt rusty. Funny, he remembered talking to people.

"But the attempt was a thing of beauty," Larry said. "I took a photo for my scrap book."

"It was flawed."

Larry nodded. His hands steepled under his chin. "True, true. However, Wiles _had_ been working in total secrecy for seven years. You have to excuse the man for publishing early."

Charlie chuckled again. It felt easier once he'd started, as if a block was shifting loose in his throat.

Larry smiled. "And he _did_ come to the right answer eventually."

"I remember. A year later, after proving the Taniyama-Shimura Conjecture."

"Which no one believed could ever be done." Larry sighed. "A pity Taniyama didn't live to see it."

Charlie nodded, and looked down at his arms. His hands had begun to ache. He uncrossed his arms, and flexed his fingers. They were covered in dry erase dust. He needed to wash.

"So was I right? You've been working on a millennium problem?"

"No."

"Well, then I owe Crenshaw ten dollars."

Charlie looked up, and smiled. "Yeah, I guess you do."

Larry lifted his hands to the ceiling. "Win some, lose some."

Charlie felt his smile crumple, just a little. "I don't like to lose, Larry."

X, the destructive factor.

"No one does," Larry said. His hands swooped downwards. "Look at Wiles. All that media attention, and then…a fatal flaw, but what did he do?"

"He persevered," Charlie said.

"Exactly. With a little help, of course. A fresh perspective, as it were."

A fresh perspective. New information that could realign the data along more feasible lines. Charlie felt the equation looming behind him, slicing into his skin.

"Can you drive me somewhere?" he asked. "I need a lift."

"Of course," Larry said. "But I think whatever you're seeking might be easier to find if you showered first."

 

***

 

The elevator doors split open.

He rubbed the back of his neck.

Forty, fifty, meters of hallway stretched out before him, a window on the farthest wall.

Don lived at 5E, the penultimate door, on the right. He'd only been to the apartment once before, and that had been…that'd been a while ago. Charlie tugged on the hem of his borrowed t-shirt, and took a deep breath. Drops of water slid from his half-dried hair to his collar.

_Don, I'd like to talk to you._

No. It needed to be stronger. He'd had a lot of time to go over his figures in the shower, and then on the ride over. Larry had left him alone, not even asking who lived at the apartment building when they'd pulled up.

The elevator doors shuddered, and began to close. He stuck his hand out, and the left panel bounced off his knuckles. The hallway remained empty.

_Don, we need to talk._

He stepped out onto the floor.

_Don, we have to talk. Don, I've been thinking…remember that time we had sex? What was that all about?_

The elevator closed behind him.

_Don, make this better._

Well, he was just a big twelve year old girl, wasn't he. Time to focus. He had an equation. This equation had a flaw. To understand the outcome, he had to isolate and eliminate the flaw. To accomplish this, he needed further information.

He began to walk down the hall. 5A, 5B, 5C…what if Don wouldn't open the door? This felt different. This felt worse. When he'd gone to Don's work…there had been people there. He'd had a _plan_…of course, that plan had gone out the window--and into the stairwell, pretty quickly.

_Don, I'm going insane, and I need you to tell me what D stands for._

He hadn't come to the house. He hadn't requested Charlie for work. He hadn't--had he talked to Dad? Charlie couldn't remember.

5D, 5E.

Charlie stopped in front of Don's apartment, and swallowed. He stiffened his jaw. He was a mathematician. He was here for answers, a fresh perspective.

_Don, the equation we're living seems to have developed a distressing sub-pattern in which the variables that should build from one another instead mutate into different branches of the underlying expression. Now, I've tried quantifying it on my own, but the answer came up…it came out in a very…Look, I need you to start talking, all right?_

Time to focus. This wasn't right. Any of it. Charlie knocked on the door, rapping his knuckles underneath the metal 'E.'

He heard _something_ move inside the apartment--Don stumbling, or a door closing--and he thumped harder, steady, solid hits to the wood. The rhythm helped him foc--glass shattered inside the apartment. Charlie's shoulder muscles locked. His fist halted on the door.

"Don?" he called out. "I know you're in there!"

Come out with your hands up. Great way to the start the conversation. What the hell was he going to say now?

Charlie swallowed, and fought down the urge to bolt. "Dad sent me…" he began. Oh, even better. Bring Dad into this.

"He thinks," Charlie let a nervous chuckle slip free, "thinks we've got something to talk about."

He stared at the pale wood, but the door didn't open. He couldn't hear a sound coming through. A knot formed in Charlie's stomach. Heat bloomed at the base of his skull. He'd come to Don. To talk. He'd come to--to understand what the hell was going on, and he couldn't _do_ that if he didn't have all the facts. Charlie would _not_…this was not something he could figure out by himself anymore. There were too many variables contained in the equation. Even Wiles had had help.

Charlie's jaw tightened. Inside, Don started to cough, and Charlie banged on the door.

"See! I _heard_ that! You _are_ in there!" he yelled.

"What are you _doing_, young man?"

He turned around. The door to 5F was open. An old woman stood between the edge of the door and the threshold. She sniffed at him, clutching her bathrobe tightly against her chest. Her grey curls were amazingly symmetrical, even pressed a little flat to her head. Charlie, hand already raised, waved.

"Sorry, Ma'am," he whispered. "I'll--I'll be gone before you know it."

She sniffed again, and narrowed her eyes. "What are you doing at Agent Eppes' door at this time of night?" she asked.

He shrugged, raising his hands to the ceiling. "Look, I've been doing some…I've been going over some figures, and…"

He kicked the door behind him, willing Don to open up. What did he have to do? Crawl? And now the neighbor lady was backing up into her apartment with a very alarmed look on her face.

"Do you work for the FBI?" She stuck her head out to look up and down the hall.

Charlie spun around. Just when he was close to understanding how they'd…even his actions now--_their_ actions were changing the equation. C acting on D while D was in absentia. D's very _absence_ became a factor, but the flaw persisted. C was still the primary proactive element, with D as a secondary…God, he was tired. He couldn't really remember his sleeping patterns lately.

"I…I just…c'mon, at least let me tell Dad I saw you," he said to the door.

"Is that some kind of code?" the woman asked behind him. "I've heard about boys like you."

She shut her door with a bang. He winced, and kicked Don's door again. Maybe Don would open up just to tell Charlie to keep the noise down. Or, hey, guilt might work.

"He was upset when you didn't call him back about Dr. Weber. He thinks she wants to talk to him. …Maybe me, as well. He's been griping about it all day."

Actually, he couldn't really remember his last conversation with Dad. Something about Florida? Charlie shook his head. He glanced behind him to see the crazy woman had come back. She was giving him the evil eye.

"Don?" Charlie raised his voice again. "Open up, okay? Your neighbors are staring at me."

"You're still here," she said.

"Yes, ma'am! I'm still here." He lifted his hand to knock again, and--

"Shouldn't you be off buying dope, or something?"

Dope? He frowned, pausing. What had brought that up? He looked behind him.

"Well, you should just be moving on," she said, shooing him off with her hand. "Agent Eppes is a very busy man with a lot on his mind."

And he didn't? He'd been working on this problem day and night--and teaching class! Charlie lifted his chin, and glared. The woman raised her arm, a cordless phone in her bony hand.

Charlie kicked the door again. "Don, open the door. I think she's calling the police."

Nothing. Maybe--maybe that glass crashing had been serious. Charlie pressed his hand to the door, ignoring the sound of dialing behind him. That was too many numbers for 911, anyway.

"Are--are you there? Are you all right?" he asked.

"Oh course he's not," the crazy woman said. "A lunatic is attacking his front door."

Something thumped on the door from _inside_. Don. Don was at the door. Charlie straightened, tuning the woman's mutterings out. He licked his lips and took a deep breath. His hand pushed against the wood.

If Don opened the door, they could talk. D could be quantified with the information Don contained, and then E would start to make more sense than simply…if Don had the information Charlie hoped he did than C wouldn't necessarily be X.

_Why_ wouldn't he say anything? He was there. He was right there…Charlie remembered the stairwell, or more correctly, _why_ Don had pushed him into the stairwell.

"Sorry, I know you hate that…but…" That woman was dialing again, clucking her tongue with every beep. "Damn it, open the door!"

"Language!"

Charlie clenched his hands. Don was behind the door, close enough that Charlie could imagine his outline in the wood. "I never… This isn't…I'm not good at this," he said.

He hit the door again. Maybe Dad was right to be so binary, so straightforward. You were either a one, or a zero, all the variables accounted for. Formulating the answers in number theory required input based on reliable facts. If the facts weren't _there_, or biased, then the equation suffered.

He leaned his head against the door, and tried to stare through the barrier.

"You're alive," he said. "I'm so happy you're alive. And, I just…I didn't _mean_ to!"

He'd tried back at the office. He'd wanted to _understand_, but D defied qualification, and C became X, and E was slipping from his fingers.

"I didn't come here with…expectations."

But maybe he had. What D stood for, what it meant when C acted on D, and D damn well _let_ him. He didn't know anymore, and that was a highly distressing idea. That his own data could be so corrupted by emotion that it became useless...

"I just…" Charlie knocked on the door again, three times and then twice. "You know, what?"

What was he supposed to gain from a lack of understanding? What information was D _witholding_ that would make this equation work? His chest tightened. Blood pounded at his temples.

"You want me gone, then…you tell me to my face. You open this door, and you throw me out of your building yourself and--"

"Who let you in here? Was it that lout by the door?"

Charlie spun around, jaw clenched. "Yes, ma'am! The doorman _did_ let me in!"

Actually, the doorman was asleep, but Charlie hadn't been in the mood for conversation anyway.

The woman pursed her lips. Her eyebrows rose. "Did you slip him a twenty?" she hissed.

Charlie dragged a hand through his hair, and then shook his finger at her.

"_No_," he said. "I did _not_ give him twenty dollars. I--oh."

He heard the door open. Charlie's head whipped around. He blinked. He swallowed, and his hand dropped to his side.

Don stood in the doorway, one hand on the doorknob. He was fully dressed, from the soles of his shoes to the perfectly knotted tie at his throat. He stared at Charlie, and heat shot through Charlie's body.

"Everything's fine, Mrs. Green," Don said. "Go back inside."

For the life of him, Charlie couldn't remember a single number. It was horrifying, empty, _lonely_, and the only other person to latch on to was his brother. He'd forgotten this, the physical _jolt_ of Don's presence. How had he forgotten that?

He heard the bang of a door closing, and then Don was raising a beer bottle to his mouth. Charlie watched the arc of the bottle, Don's lips wrapping around the opening, the flex of Don's neck as he swallowed. Charlie found himself copying the motion, his throat suddenly dry.

Don lowered the beer bottle, and glared at Charlie. Don was… Don was standing in the doorway, blocking Charlie's view into the apartment with his body. He held the door half closed. He didn't _want_ Charlie here.

Charlie crossed his arms over his chest, and hunched his shoulders. He kicked the floor with his toe. He could do this. There was an equation to be solved. This was what he _did_.

"Hey," Charlie said.

Don took a deep breath, and his lips thinned. He frowned, and Charlie flinched.

"You gonna let me in?" Charlie asked shakily. "I've been running some sequences--charts, actually, and I think I've got--"

"You've seen me," Don broke in.

Charlie's head snapped up. His mouth parted, breath escaping in a rush. A sharp pain snapped through his gut.

Don glared again. He coughed, and looked past him, as if Charlie had turned to air. Charlie closed his mouth. His chin lifted.

"Go home," Don said. He sounded like he was speaking to Charlie from far away. D, removing himself from the equation.

He started to close the door, and it smacked straight into Charlie's foot. Charlie stepped closer, thrusting his body into Don's space.

"We're having this conversation," he said. "It's either gonna be in the hallway, or in your apartment."

C acted on D, whether to D's detriment, or as a positive function, but D did _not_ punk out and completely void E. That wasn't _possible_.

Don closed his eyes, and banged his head against the edge of the door.

"_Stop_ that," Charlie said. He stepped closer, and smelled beer on Don's clothes. He breathed deeply.

E had _occurred_, and what had occurred once, could not be undone. Numbers existed outside of man's ability to discount them. Pythagoras had ignored that fact, and made his greatest, most disgraceful mistake.

Don looked at him from narrowed eyes. Charlie resisted the urge to touch the reddened curve at his neck, where Don's collar must have aggravated the skin.

"It's my apartment," Don said. "If you don't like it, then leave."

Just because you didn't like the answer…Just because the answer wasn't something you expected…Charlie frowned.

C was X. D was Don. And E was somewhere in that apartment. Where they could talk.

Don licked his lips, and Charlie's train of thought briefly derailed. He took a breath. He kept his eyes on Don's face, reaching out to brush his fingers across the back of Don's hand. Don's knuckles were rough, but the thin skin behind them felt soft. Charlie shivered at the contact. He wanted to have that hand on his hip again, feel his brother thrusting against him again.

"Why the hell does everybody want to talk at me these days?" Don asked. His voice curled inside Charlie's head, and took root.

Charlie blinked. Don was looking at his mouth. His upper lip curled, and Don's breath picked up.

"Because you never say _anything_ when you've got a problem!" Charlie said.

"There's nothing to say."

Don leaned closer, almost near enough to kiss. Charlie froze. If he kissed--if they moved together, would E make sense? Would D? A nervous chuckle escaped, and Don flinched.

Damn. Damn it. Time to focus. Charlie dragged a hand through his hair. He squared his jaw, and looked Don in the eye. Don backed up like Charlie had the plague, and Charlie saw his chance.

Before Don could shut the door again, Charlie shot across the threshold, and into the apartment. He kicked the door shut behind him, and leaned on it. He stared at his brother, off balance. He didn't have the answers, or he had part of the answer, and Don had the other part, and so this…whatever it was had to be resolved.

"You think I _want_ to talk about this?" he asked. "Damn it, Don! I'm _tired_ I--" he squinted to the side. Light drenched the apartment. "You sure you've got enough light in here? You could signal MIR with this array."

He peered into the living room. It looked like Don had turned on every lamp and fixture in the apartment--maybe even added some.

"I told you to go home," Don said.

Charlie coughed, turning back to Don, and tugging on the hem of his t-shirt. It was hot in Don's apartment. All the extra light, plus the typical climate of California…and Don was wearing long sleeves _plus_ a tie…"Yeah, I know, hey, you pay electricity on a monthly basis, so with six plus four--no. I'm concentrating here."

Charlie walked forward. He grabbed Don's elbow, cupping the bony joint in his palm. The contact felt good. He tugged Don into the living room, and gaped at the bare-bulbed lamps turned on to their highest setting, the mess on the coffee table.

Don jerked his elbow out of Charlie's hand. He stepped back to the edge of his couch. Charlie let his hand fall to his side. What the hell had Don been doing in here? A tremor went through Charlie's body. Maybe…maybe Don had less of an answer than he'd hoped.

"I need more information," Charlie said. His voice sounded weak in his ears.

"You can borrow my encyclopedia," Don said.

Charlie glared at him, and Don cackled into his beer bottle. A drop of liquid beaded at the edge of his mouth, and fell down his chin. Charlie licked his lips.

In all the light, Charlie could see the muscles move beneath Don's shirt. The lines around his mouth, the pallor of his skin. Don rested the bottle on his thigh, and pressed his lips together. He looked tired, as worn out as Charlie felt.

He wasn't going to speak. He was going to sit there, and drink beer unless Charlie thought of something to say.

"That's funny. That's funny, and you're joking…that's a good thing…" Charlie stepped forward, and Don raised his free hand.

"Just stay over there," Don said. Don's eyebrows drew downwards. He shifted his grip on his beer bottle like he was throttling it.

Charlie stopped moving. "Don, I want--"

"I don't care," he said. "I don't care, you need to…you need to leave."

"You're blocking my path," Charlie said.

"Well, that's easily taken care of, isn't it?"

Don collapsed onto the arm of his couch. His thighs spread to keep his balance, and his slacks tightened at the crotch. He swept his arm to the side, and smiled.

"Feel free to _get out_ at any time."

Charlie pursed his lips, and took a deep breath. Well, Don was speaking now. And he blamed Charlie for this. X, the disruptive variable. Charlie crossed his arms over his chest.

"I didn't mean for this to happen," he said.

Don grimaced. His eyes flashed. "You think I _did_?" he barked.

"No," Charlie said. He blinked quickly. Damn it.

The variables involved had placed pressure on D, then C, who'd reacted upon D, thus adding even greater stress on a single variable. The outcome of…saying cubing D had then rebounded on C and--

"So…how'd it happen?" Don asked.

Charlie's mouth opened and closed. He shrugged. The lights were giving him a headache. He didn't have the answer. Except he had part of it--and once Don heard the part Charlie had figured out, Charlie would be out on his ass. And D would remain unclassified, except in the roughest of terms.

"Would you believe I don't know?" Charlie asked. At least, not to his satisfaction.

Don laughed, and Charlie fought the urge to back up a step.

"No," Don said. "You _always_ have the answers, don't you Charlie?"

He shifted on the arm of the couch again, and Charlie caught himself on the back of Don's easy chair. He had two whiteboards full of their problem, at least four notebooks in his office, and twice that amount of information in his head, and right then the only thing he wanted to calculate was the arch of Don's neck as it twisted in front of him.

"That's what everybody says, anyway," Don muttered. "Just. Ask. _Charlie_."

Charlie moved closer. His rubbed his fingers into his palm, trying to erase the faint patina of ink on his skin. There was so much he didn't know, so many elements of D he couldn't calculate because D remained unknown, familiar and yet totally dissimilar from what he thought he remembered.

"I've been working on it," Charlie said. "An answer, I mean…we're not--are you gay?"

Don gaped at him, and Charlie flushed. Don looked down. He coughed, and picked at a loose thread.

"Are you?" he asked.

"No! I--I'm equal opportunity," Charlie said. "As it were."

"…Works for me," Don said, nodding to his lap.

Charlie felt a certain tension leave him, and another build. This was something. An answer. He…it was an intersection, a place where two elements of previously exclusive factors came together. He felt his mouth curl upwards, and took a step forward.

"Really? That's--that's…okay. Why--why didn't you say anything?"

Don snorted, and brought his beer to his mouth. Damn it, not again. If he was drinking, then he couldn't answer anything. Charlie moved to stand at Don's knee. He reached out and wrapped his hand around the butt of the bottle. Don let go of the beer, and grabbed Charlie's wrist. His fingers dug into Charlie's skin.

Charlie's eyes widened. His mouth opened, and he licked his bottom lip. Don was staring at him again.

He'd done that a lot, from the moment the door had opened. And then he'd tear his gaze away and come right back again. Maybe he'd always _been_ staring and Charlie was only now starting to understand it. Maybe C was X, but X wasn't all he'd been cracked up to be.

He slowly pulled the beer away from Don's mouth. The brown glass was heavy and damp against his palm, warm from Don's fingers. Don kept his eyes on Charlie the entire time, as Charlie put the bottle to his lips. The mouth of the bottle clicked slightly against his teeth as he swallowed the beer.

It tasted a little stale, a bit warm, and the mouth of the bottle was slick with Don's taste. Charlie swallowed again, and Don stood up. His hand spasmed around Charlie's wrist, pushing forward, and Charlie was forced to let the bottle into his mouth, or break his teeth.

Don was taller, stronger, than him. Charlie _knew_ that of course, but now the fact was forced on him as his brother squeezed his wrist. Don's mouth opened, breath hissing out. Charlie swallowed around the bottle, flattening his tongue along the smooth weight of it in his mouth.

Close. They were as close as they'd been in the stairwell, and was D acting on C in response, or had C been acted upon? Charlie couldn't remember. Don's hand rose. His fingertips stroked over Charlie's cheek, rubbing in small circles. Charlie's eyes slipped half-closed. His cock hardened as the hand on his wrist loosened enough for him to lower the beer bottle.

Charlie swallowed, and let the bottle fall to the floor. Don grunted. His lips drew back from his teeth, and his hand left Charlie's face. He felt a cold spot where Don's fingers had been, and flexed his wrist just to feel Don's hand tighten.

Don was silent, looking at him, then through him, and then at him again. Charlie lifted his chin, and leaned forward into Don's space, trying to catch his eye. Don was usually so _there_, so physically present, that when he left Charlie felt it like an ache in his bones.

Now. It had to be now, when they were both aware of the variables acting on each other, and not at their beck and call.

"This sequence I've been running," he began, "I've been trying to figure out how this could happen to us. How it could occur without--without any kind of foundation, and…I think it goes farther than just…momentary insanity. For an event to occur there _must_ be a foundation, even a slight one, and so…"

Don waited. His forehead wrinkled, something panicked lurked in his eyes. Charlie swallowed again, and licked his lips. He had to say it. Don could forgive him, couldn't he? They were already here, at the intersection, the elemental common point.

"If the trigger," he said quietly, "was Emily's kidnapping, then the--the _sex_ wouldn't have happened. You've worked on kidnapping cases before. And--and Kirkpatrick…"

If Kirkpatrick wasn't the first dead man--and who had Don gone to then? But Don hadn't exactly gone to Charlie. C who was X, acting on D creating part of E, and D, who maybe was 'E' after all.

Don nodded. His fist jabbed into his own stomach, and Charlie forced himself to finish what he'd begun. He bent his head, watching Don's hand work itself into his own stomach. It was a familiar motion, but Charlie couldn't place it.

"So, it was _me_," Charlie said. "Outside stimulus exacerbates internal factors. A plus B _doesn't_ equal D, if C gets in the way. If A's the kidnapping, B the shooting, and D the outcome, than _C_…"

His voice broke. He couldn't finish, and shut his eyes when Don yanked on his wrist. He felt bones shift. They swayed for a moment, and then stilled. Charlie felt a window open in the back of his skull. Zero, one, one, two, three, five, eight. A number built on the backs of the previous two which were themselves answers in their own right.

"I _told_ you this isn't your fault," Don growled.

Charlie shook his head. His breath tore out of his throat, and he inhaled deeply. He looked up into Don's face, and fought down the laughter. When had Don said that? He couldn't remember a single time. And what good was it to protest? This was _Charlie's_ field, and while his emotions may have created a flaw, it wasn't that C had been an instigating party as he'd thought. It was that Don _had not_ been so much a factor as he'd been the goal _and_ a factor, and that was just fucked beyond belief.

"Look, I _ran the numbers_ on this one! I--"

"I am not a God damned _number_!"

Of course he was! They both were! Data to be understood and calculated, and if Don hadn't been _stubborn_ they'd have been a finished equation days--weeks--however long ago it had been! Felt almost like yesterday with Don standing so close, and as just out of understanding as ever. Don shook Charlie's arm, forcing him to step back. Charlie hauled his wrist to the side, and Don moved forward. Charlie stabbed his other hand in Don's face.

"How _many_ times--_everything_ is _numbers_!" he shouted.

Don grabbed the back of Charlie's neck with his free hand and dragged him into a kiss. His mouth was hard, smashing his teeth against Charlie's lips until Charlie opened, and let Don inside.

He tasted just as good as Charlie had remembered, and the shock of that was like acid in his veins. That this could taste--could feel--as good as it had before altered the equation. C--X as an _element_ of D, whose intersection was both C and E, and held D as the flashpoint. Charlie sucked on Don's tongue and pressed forward for more. He stuck his fingers in Don's belt loops for balance, to feel the taut muscles of Don's body against his own.

Don's hand kneaded the back of Charlie's head, scratching into the scalp, and then he tangled his fingers in Charlie's hair, and yanked, breaking them apart. Charlie's mouth gaped, dragging in air. His hips thrust forward, and they lost their balance.

They wavered, but Don managed to keep them both upright. Charlie found himself with his hands on Don's ass, and flexed his fingers into the muscles. He shuddered at the sensation. He let Don push his head to the side, and gave up to the feel of his brother's tongue as it mapped his neck. He cried out as Don's cock rubbed against his, and closed his eyes, trying to block out the harsh light.

"This can't happen," Don said.

Charlie looked down, pushing against Don's hip, as Don shut him out. D in absentia, which wasn't possible because Charlie felt him everywhere, hard against him and still holding his head. Charlie's fingers stretched up Don's stomach and chest, and closed over the tight knot at his brother's throat. He could see rough skin underneath Don's collar, red and painful looking. Charlie tugged at the knot, and Don moaned. Don's breath evened out, and then sped up again.

"Don't let me do this," Don said. "God, don't let me do this, I…"

But he groaned again as Charlie pressed down on the knot, loosening the tie until it hung beneath the second button of Don's shirt. His throat muscles rippled, and his shoulders slumped, but then tightened again, spine snapping vertical. Don stood like it hurt to even breathe.

The element X in play, mutating in meaning as variables rained around them. There was too much light, too much everything, and not enough room to catch his breath. Charlie's head pounded, his fingers shook on the knot. He pulled on Don's tie, and his brother followed him. Charlie couldn't look away from Don's face, his red, wet mouth. His hands slipped from Charlie's body.

Charlie risked looking behind him, and saw a bed through an entryway. He veered towards it, and stumbled on something coming through the door. He fell back on the mattress, and Don landed on top of him.

Don's body blocked the light above. He crouched over Charlie, back arching up as he dropped his head. Charlie inhaled the scent of Don's cropped hair, and unbuttoned Don's collar. He pressed his thumb into the hollow at Don's throat, where the roughest patch of skin lurked, and twisted to kiss Don's forehead. He closed his eyes, feeling Don's shaking pass into his own body.

"This is _wrong_," Don said.

He thrust downward, and Charlie groaned. He wrapped his arms around Don's back to keep him close and scratched at the cotton shirt. Skin and quaking muscles under his hands, and the rhythm of Don's breath matched the grind of his cock into Charlie's hip. E. He had been looking for E the outcome--or was it D? He couldn't--he couldn't _think_ anymore, and he didn't know why he'd want to because the weight of Don, the zero point, choked him. He pushed up and snatched air into his lungs.

"You think I don't _know_ that?" Charlie asked.

It would _kill_ Dad. Charlie was surprised it hadn't killed _him_.

Don groaned. His hand pushed down Charlie's ribcage, and around into the front of Charlie's jeans. His knuckles circled over Charlie's stomach, tensing, rather than relaxing, and Charlie wrenched at the side of Don's shirt, sending buttons popping. He paused, flattening his palm against the skin. Don's chest--he'd never seen it from this angle, never wanted so much to _touch_ as he did now. Charlie whimpered, and brought his hand up to rub the red marks on Don's neck.

"This is going to _stop_ tonight," Don said.

He thumbed open the button at Charlie's jeans, and pushed his hand into Charlie's underwear. Charlie moved into the circle of Don's hand, and gasped.

"I know, I know," he said, twisting his head to the side. All they had to do was complete the equation, solve the problem, and then…and then…

Charlie shuddered as Don stroked his cock, timing his own thrusts against Charlie's hip to the motion of his hand. Charlie tugged Don's head down, kissing the lines in his forehead and down to suck at Don's lips, biting because Don seemed to like that. Don clenched his fist at the head of Charlie's cock, a hint of nails on the underside, and Charlie writhed upwards with a moan. Don rested his head on the Charlie's breastbone, and Charlie tucked his face as best he could in Don's neck.

He closed his eyes against the light. He hated it. Don looked old beneath it, washed out and ragged. He looked like the light hurt him, or maybe that was just Charlie.

"This is the _end_," Don whispered, and his other hand caressed Charlie's balls.

"Okay, no problem," Charlie panted into Don's ear. "Kiss me good bye."

He reached downward, and burrowed his hand between his hip and Don's cock, gripping his brother through his slacks. Don's head tilted back to the ceiling, mouth stretching to a red circle. Charlie laved the mark at Don's throat , licking up the Adam's Apple and into Don's mouth. Don moaned, and stroked Charlie harder.

The hand on his balls left, and Charlie whined at the loss, then arched up as Don scraped his fingernails underneath Charlie's shirt and pulled it over his head, leaving it hanging from one arm. Charlie groaned. Skin, finally more skin, and it felt as good as he knew it shouldn't, but the equation had to reach its zenith, the necessary factors coming into play. Don crawled above him, forcing their bodies up the bed, and gripping Charlie in one hand. Charlie felt Don's pants opening, then the feel of them slithering down Don's legs.

He clutched Don's tie and tore it from him, the knot finally working free. He mapped the skin above him, learning the curves and peaks, the hard columns of bone beneath the skin. Don came back to him, naked but for his shirt and Charlie was suddenly, fiercely happy. He pushed up into Don's fingers, his tongue, his _presence_, dimly aware that Don was biting words into his skin, sinking them into his body along with his teeth. He swallowed and tried to focus, to make the words out.

"Don't let me do this," he was whispering to Charlie's chest, biting his way between nipples. "Don't let me do this. Tell me to stop. _Make_ me stop."

Then why were they _here_? Because Don was here, alive, and breathing and moving against him, and Charlie knew it hurt, because he hurt too, and…_make me stop_.

Charlie's fingers curled into Don's hair. Don bit down on the nipple underneath his mouth, and Charlie bucked upwards. Obeying the demand in Don's touches, and if he could do that, couldn't he listen to what Don was telling him? He'd come here for that, for the information, for--

"Stop."

He almost didn't recognize his own voice. Don froze, and something cracked in Charlie's chest. Don's hands clenched on Charlie's body, and suddenly they were the only points of heat left. Charlie felt cold, exposed in the blinding lights. He pulled away from Don, and knelt by his brother on the bed.

Don was on all fours. He didn't even turn his head to look at Charlie.

Charlie shifted on his knees. He didn't know what to do. _Make me stop._ He had. Now what? Leave? He looked towards the bedroom door, the lights beyond the threshold.

Don wanted him to stop, or wanted him to make _Don_ stop. So that meant…he… Charlie let the room fade away, focusing on the round of Don's shoulder. If--maybe C wasn't X, and D wasn't X either. Not a binomial expression, but C plus D acting in reaction to a _third_ variable as an outside--maybe internal, could it be _integral_?--stimulus.

Charlie reached out and palmed Don's shoulder. The swell of muscle quivered under his fingers. If this was the outcome, E, then X as the outside--possibly internal--disruptive factor had still to be quantified. It was why Don was here, why Charlie was here, why they were both hard and shaking and Don was lying on his back, refusing to look at Charlie. Something he'd done, and Don'd done, and then…

Don closed his eyes. Charlie flinched.

The light showed every line of Don's body. The strong chest, the hair and nipples, every mark exposed, stiff and tense. Scratches from Charlie's nails, a faint sheen of sweat leading down Don's stomach to the yellowing bruise--that he hadn't put there. It was over the spot Don had aggravated in the living room.

He remembered now. That was Terry's bruise. Charlie swallowed. He lay his hand on Don's abdomen. His index finger swiped across the bump, and Don's stomach tightened.

"If I had said that before, would you have stopped?" Charlie asked.

Don nodded. Charlie waited, but his brother still wouldn't look at him. He wanted to lean down, to kiss him until Don was forced to grab hold again, but it wouldn't count if Don wasn't even seeing _him_.

"Open your eyes," he said.

Don shook his head to the ceiling. A hot, tight spiral curled up Charlie's spine.

"I think you should go," Don said.

Charlie's breath left him. He shivered, cold and hot at the same time, and the lights beat down on his head. How did Don _live_ with it all?

"…Please?" Charlie asked.

Don opened his eyes, and Charlie bent under his gaze. His forehead pressed against his fingers on Don's stomach. Terry's bruise loomed in his sight. It was old, fading--almost tan at the edges. He raised his head, and kissed the heart of it, feeling heat against his lips.

Charlie looked up, and met Don's eyes. Don's mouth curled up for a brief, heart-stopping moment. The lines on his face relaxed, and reformed.

"I'm _sorry_," Don said.

At the intersection of C and E, where D was an element and a stimulus of both, the inclusion of X became a question of primary concern.

"Everything is numbers," Charlie said, and bit down at the center of Terry's bruise.

Don arched into his mouth. His hand slammed onto the back of Charlie's head, and held him in place--not that Charlie could have let go. The skin between his teeth was soft, but tense and hot enough that Charlie could warm his own body direct from the source. Salt burned his tongue and he pushed closer to take more, to tear into Don until D was just as much an element of C as he was of every thing else, physical and present, _alive_.

Charlie held Don against the bed as he writhed, gentling his mouth to let his brother breath, to hear him moving above him and under him at the same time. He murmured Don's name against the tight skin, whispered the equation he'd fought with while Don lived it, and apologized in the same breath.

He was hurting Don. He was hurting himself, and Don's hand on Charlie cock was the best thing--the only thing--he could feel except for the skin under his teeth. If he could hold on, into Don's stomach, into Don's fist, then the lights couldn't reach them, and Don couldn't stop and neither could Charlie and he looked up into his brother's face to find his way.

Don moaned, and Charlie bit harder, clenching his jaw as Don fisted his cock. Fire charred his bones as he jerked in Don's hand, burrowing into the new formed bruise. Charlie tasted copper, bright as burning pennies, and lifted his mouth.

Don thrust into the air, and groped for him, keening, and Charlie fell onto Don's body, holding on and delving down as the numbers piled on top of them. Zero, one, one, two, three, five, lips and tongue, and Don's cock jerking in his hand as eight, thirteen, twenty-one, thirty-four, oh God, the feel of Don surrounding him and tearing at him, holding him against the bed and against himself, fifty-five, eighty-nine, one hundred and forty-four, two hundred--they rolled over and Charlie was on top--and thirty-three, arching and moaning and twisting in each other's grip until nothing existed but three hundred and seventy-seven, six hundred and ten, nine hundred and eighty-seven, and he sealed his mouth to Don's, suckling and fucking his tongue past Don's teeth, one thousand five hundred and ninety-seven, and Don shouted and bucked and came over Charlie's fist and two thousand five hundred and eighty-four, four thousand one hundred and eighty-one, and Charlie shuddered as Don did, coming and losing his breath as Don pulled him close.

His hands stroked down Charlie's back, his nose in Charlie's shoulder. Don tucked Charlie against his side, and Charlie relaxed, worn and tired. He closed his eyes, feeling Don settle against him, and slept.

 

***

 

Charlie woke naked, alone, with the quilt tucked securely around him. For a moment he couldn't breath, stifled by the quilt and the lights, and the lack of Don. Then, he turned on his back. He inhaled and the smell of Don and himself and sex entered his body. He looked at his hand, still faintly stained with ink, and got up, and began to turn out all the lights.

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Notes: This is really a little bridge-type piece. If you have any liking for mathematics at all, I apologize. All mistakes are most certainly mine.
> 
> Author's Notes (2): Thanks goes to schnaucl for the nagging--er, encouragement?
> 
> Disclaimer: I have nothing (apparently, not even my sanity). Numb3rs is the product of CBS and the Scott Brothers, and I make nothing from this while they rake in the millions. Which is how I like it. In other words? I. Made. It. Up.


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